This content is not included in your SAE MOBILUS subscription, or you are not logged in.

Development of the Combustion System for a Flexible Fuel Turbocharged Direct Injection Engine

Journal Article
2010-01-0585
ISSN: 1946-3936, e-ISSN: 1946-3944
Published April 12, 2010 by SAE International in United States
Development of the Combustion System for a Flexible Fuel Turbocharged Direct Injection Engine
Sector:
Citation: Whitaker, P., Shen, Y., Spanner, C., Fuchs, H. et al., "Development of the Combustion System for a Flexible Fuel Turbocharged Direct Injection Engine," SAE Int. J. Engines 3(1):326-354, 2010, https://doi.org/10.4271/2010-01-0585.
Language: English

Abstract:

Gasoline turbocharged direct injection (GTDI) engines, such as EcoBoostâ„¢ from Ford, are becoming established as a high value technology solution to improve passenger car and light truck fuel economy. Due to their high specific performance and excellent low-speed torque, improved fuel economy can be realized due to downsizing and downspeeding without sacrificing performance and driveability while meeting the most stringent future emissions standards with an inexpensive three-way catalyst.
A logical and synergistic extension of the EcoBoostâ„¢ strategy is the use of E85 (approximately 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) for knock mitigation. Direct injection of E85 is very effective in suppressing knock due to ethanol's high heat of vaporization - which increases the charge cooling benefit of direct injection - and inherently high octane rating. As a result, higher boost levels can be achieved while maintaining optimal combustion phasing giving high thermal efficiency. However, due to their different properties, optimization of a combustion system for both regular grade (91 RON) gasoline and E85 is non-trivial.
This paper describes the initial design and development of a new combustion system for a flexible fuel (gasoline and E85) turbocharged direct injection engine. The development process utilized a boosted single-cylinder engine in conjunction with a second boosted single-cylinder engine with optical access which was used to provide insight into fuel/air interactions and resultant combustion performance. Using this approach a robust combustion system was developed to meet targets for both gasoline and E85 operation before multi-cylinder hardware was available.